Rachel nodded. She didn’t believe a word he was saying, but she was following the story easily enough.
“So, shifters began to seek out these women. Over the years, the process evolved and Matchmakers appeared on the scene. Matchmakers are people who go out into the world, find women with Sanmere in their blood, and sell them to shifters to be their mates.”
“What if the women don’t want that?” Rachel asked.
“Who wouldn’t want immortality?” Lewis said as though it was a foregone conclusion that no one would object to being abducted and sold to someone as some sort of sex slave. “Shifters stop aging at twenty-nine, and so do women who have been turned. The only way to kill a bear shifter is with pure silver or with a rare metal called Ure. Or, of course, decapitation. But I digress. Where were we? Ah yes. Matchmakers. In case you haven’t worked it out, I’m a Matchmaker.”
“So, you’re going to sell me to some man to be his wife?” Rachel asked.
“Not exactly. I have a different arrangement with the alpha bear of District 212,” he said. He saw Rachel’s confusion. “District 212 is Texas. The alpha bear already has a mate, a natural-born bear who can’t have female children. His pack is severely lacking in female bears and he’s handling the situation by bringing in women with the Sanmere protein and breeding with them.”
Rachel felt the color drain from her face. If any of this were true, she was going to be a literal sex slave, a breeding machine abused by monsters. If Lewis noticed her reaction, he made no comment on it.
“So normally, the shifter who purchases the woman likes to turn her himself to help to develop a bond between them. In this case, the alpha bear has no interest in bonding with his women, and so I will turn you before he arrives. Don’t worry. It only hurts for a short amount of time,” Lewis said.
“I… no,” Rachel said. “Please. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to be immortal. Please just let me go. I swear I won’t tell anyone about this, and even if I did, who would believe me?”
Lewis smiled at her.
“I’m sorry if I somehow implied this was optional, Rachel,” he said.
He stood up and headed toward the door to her cage, pulling out a bunch of keys as he went.
“Wait,” Rachel said, thinking about what he had told her. “I don’t have the weird protein. I’m just normal.”
“You have the protein, Rachel,” he smiled. “Do you really think I’d go to this much effort to get you here if there was any doubt about that?”
“How do you know?” Rachel asked as Lewis unlocked her cage door and stepped inside.
“That doesn’t matter,” Lewis smiled. “Just trust me when I tell you that you have the protein.”
He walked toward her. Rachel tried to cower away, but she couldn’t move. Lewis lifted her t-shirt up and she flinched, thinking he was going to rape her. He lifted it high enough to expose the flesh on her belly, but no higher, and then he stepped back and Rachel relaxed a tiny bit.
The moment didn’t last for long. Rachel’s jaw dropped as Lewis began to change in front of her eyes. His face seemed to flicker out of focus and then black fur began sprouting through his skin. His body grew, his clothes tearing away. Within seconds, a large, black bear stood in the cage with Rachel. Horror filled her. She had thought Lewis was crazy, and she had been scared about what he was going to do to her, but it had never occurred to her for even a second that he was actually telling the truth.
The bear stepped closer to Rachel and she screamed as it reached out toward her with a paw. She screamed again as it ran its claws across her exposed midriff. Pain exploded through her body and she felt the warm trickles of blood running down her sides. The bear ignored her screams, her protests. It stepped even closer and leaned its head down over her stomach. It roared and opened its mouth, sinking its teeth into the raw flesh the scratches had exposed.
She knew then it was going to kill her. She wondered if that was a better or worse fate than the one Lewis had described. The thought was pushed from her mind as she felt its teeth clamp down tighter on her, tearing through the scratches in her flesh. She screamed in pain again.
The bear stepped back from her and began to change again, and within seconds, Lewis stood in the cage once more. He bent down and picked up his tattered shirt, using it to cover his cock.
“There,” he smiled. “Now you’re a bear.”
Rachel ignored him, lifting her head and looking at the ruined mess of her stomach. She almost gagged at the sight of her mutilated flesh and the blood pouring freely from her. She was going to die here after all. It would just be slower than she had first thought it would be.
Lewis turned and walked away, leaving Rachel shouting after him. He locked the cage and left the room. Rachel lay in the room alone, tears running down her face. She realized her stomach was no longer hurting and she lifted her head, sure that she would be dead soon now that numbness had set in. Her jaw dropped when she looked at her stomach. Smears of blood still covered her skin, but where the wounds had been, new pink skin covered
